1.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
2.
Federico Degetau
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Federico Degetau y González was a Puerto Rican politician, lawyer, writer, author, and the first Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico to the United States House of Representatives. Degetau was born in 1862 in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, where he attended the common schools. His father was Mathias Degetau, son of a wealthy Hamburg, Germany, in Ponce his father Mathias managed the banks of the Overman and Dede House, of which his father, Otto Georg Christian Degetau, was a partner. Federicos mother was María Consolación González, daughter of a respected San Juan family and he completed an academic course at Barcelona, Spain, and was graduated from the law department of the Central University of Madrid. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Madrid and he founded the newspaper La Isla de Puerto Rico to communicate the plight of Puerto Rico to the colonial power. Degetau returned to Puerto Rico, and was one of the four commissioners sent by Puerto Rico under Luis Muñoz Rivera to petition Spain for autonomy in 1895. The petition was denied but a government was imposed by the U. S. Congress three years later as a result of the Spanish–American War. He settled in San Juan, Puerto Rico and continued to practice law, Degetau was a member of the municipal council of San Juan in 1897, and mayor of San Juan in 1898. He was deputy to the Spanish Cortes Generales of 1898 and he was appointed by General Henrys successor, General George W. Davis, as a member of the Insular Board of Charities. Degetau became a member of the Insular Republican Party, which was founded in 1899 and he was the first vice president of the municipal council of San Juan in 1899 and 1900, and was president of the Board of Education of San Juan in 1900 and 1901. He was elected as a Puerto Rican Republican to the Resident Commissioner post in 1900 and he served from March 4,1901 until March 3,1905, in the Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth Congresses. The American flag can perhaps be lowered in the distant Philippines and it must be maintained in the neighboring Island, with the institutions of liberty and justice that it represents. While serving Congress, Degetau was a member of the Committee on Insular Affairs, and submitted a bill to grant United States citizenship to Puerto Rico residents and he was not a candidate for renomination in 1904, and resumed the practice of law. Chairman, I do not know, my friends, in this patriotic relation anything superior, I do not conceive anything more sacred that the oath to support it. In 1902, the United States Treasury Department issued new guidelines that changed the immigration status of all Puerto Ricans. She lost her appeals in the Board hearings and took her case to the U. S. Supreme Court and his protest was forwarded to the U. S. Treasury Department. Degetau then contacted Le Barbier and Parker, who informed him that they planned to appeal Gonzálezs case to the U. S. Supreme Court. The groundbreaking case, which known as Gonzales v. Williams, was argued in the U. S. Supreme Court on December 4 and 7,1903 and was presided by Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller
3.
Ponce, Puerto Rico
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Ponce is both a city and a municipality in the southern part of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government, Ponce, Puerto Ricos most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, is named for Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the great-grandson of Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. Ponce is often referred to as La Perla del Sur, La Ciudad Señorial, the city serves as the governmental seat of the autonomous municipality as well as the regional hub for various Government of Puerto Rico entities, such as the Judiciary of Puerto Rico. It is also the center for various other commonwealth and federal government agencies. The municipality has a total of 31 barrios, including 19 outside the urban area and 12 in the urban area of the city. Ponce is a city of both the Ponce Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Ponce-Yauco-Coamo Combined Statistical Area. The municipality of Ponce is the second largest in Puerto Rico by land area, the region of what is now Ponce belonged to the Taíno Guaynia region, which stretched along the southern coast of Puerto Rico. Agüeybaná, a cacique who led the region, was among those that greeted Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León when he came to the island in 1508. Archeological findings have identified four sites within the municipality of Ponce with archeological significance, Canas, Tibes, Caracoles, during the first years of the colonization, Spanish families started settling around the Jacaguas River, in the south of the island. For security reasons, these moved to the banks of the Rio Portugués. Starting around 1646 the whole area from the Rio Portugués to the Bay of Guayanilla was called Ponce, in 1670, a small chapel was raised in the middle of the small settlement and dedicated in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Among its earliest settlers were Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, on September 17,1692, the King of Spain Carlos II issued a Cédula Real converting the chapel into a parish, and in so doing officially recognizing the small settlement as a hamlet. It is believed that Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, Juan Ponce de Leóns great-grandson, was instrumental in obtaining the permit to formalize the founding of the hamlet. Captains Enrique Salazar and Miguel del Toro where also instrumental, the city is named after Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the great-grandson of Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. In the early 18th century Don Antonio Abad Rodriguez Berrios built a chapel under the name of San Antonio Abad. The area would receive the name of San Antón, a historically important part of modern Ponce. In 1712 the village was chartered as El Poblado de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Ponce, in the early 19th century, Ponce continued to be one of dozens of hamlets that dotted the Island. Its inhabitants survived by subsistence agriculture, cattle raising, and maritime contraband with foreigners, however, in the 1820s, three events took place that dramatically changed the size of the town forever
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
6.
Plaza Las Delicias
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Plaza Las Delicias is the main plaza in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico. The square is notable for its fountains and for the various monuments it contains, the historic Parque de Bombas and Ponce Cathedral buildings are located within Plaza Las Delicias. Plaza Las Delicias is actually composed of two squares, Plaza Muñoz Rivera on the end and Plaza Degetau on the southern end. The square dates back to the early Spanish settlement in Ponce of 1670 and it is the main tourist attraction of the city, receiving about a quarter of a million visitors per year. According to the traditional Spanish colonial custom, a main square. In the case of Ponce, a Catholic church was built on the center of the plaza, the Plaza Las Delicias square is, thus, actually made up of two plazas. The north section of the square is named Plaza Luis Muñoz Rivera, Plaza Las Delicias measures 8,800 square meters. The history of Plaza Las Delicias dates back to as far as the creation of the first Catholic chapel in Ponce in 1670 and it is also known that around 1840 Mayor Salvador de Vives planted trees as a renovation project for Plaza Las Delicias. It was first lit in 1864, in addition to the Cathedral and the firehouse, Plaza Las Delicias at one point also contained an open dining Moorish-style Arab kiosk that had been part of the 1882 Fair Exposition. The kiosk was still present at the time of the American invasion of the island in 1898 as reported by American photo-journalist William Dinwiddie, Plaza Luis Muñoz Rivera is the smaller of the two plazas. It is so named to honor the prominent poet, journalist, the statue is the product of the foundry of Italian sculptor Luiggi Tomassi. in Pietrasanta, Italy. The Muñoz Rivera statue is made in bronze and was unveiled in 1923, Luis Yordán Dávila, mayor of Ponce at the time, was one of the main proponents of the monument. In addition to the statue of Munoz Rivera, this section of Plaza Las Delicias also has two fountains. Plaza Muñoz Rivera is bounded on the north by Plaza Muñoz Rivera street, on the west by Union street, on the east by Atocha street, and on the south by the Ponce Cathedral and Parque de Bombas. Two hotels, various banks, several boutiques, a five-story drugstore building, Plaza Federico Degetau is the larger of the two plazas. It was designed by architect Francisco Porrata-Doria in 1914 and it is located south of the Cathedral and the firehouse. It was originally called Antigua Plaza Real and this section of Plaza Las Delicias is perhaps the best known and the one most often seen in pictures. In the center of this lies the famous Fuente de los Leones
7.
Ponce Historic Zone
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The Ponce Historic Zone is a historic district in downtown Ponce, Puerto Rico, consisting of buildings and structures with architecture that date to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The zone was designated in 1962, and initially included only the center core of the city. On November 17,2005, then-Governor of Puerto Rico, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, signed Executive Order Number 72, the zone goes by various names, including Ponce Tradicional, Ponce Centro, Ponce Histórico, and Distrito Histórico. The zone is located in what is commonly called Ponce Pueblo – the central downtown, a map of the area covered by the Ponce Historic Zone is available from the government of the municipality of Ponce. Numerous other attractions in this area are listed in the NRHP, such as Banco de Ponce, Casa Paoli. Others, such as Teatro Fox Delicias, Teatro La Perla, Plaza de Mercado, Hotel Meliá, street corners in most of this zone have chamfered corners, typical of Barcelona, Spain. In recent years an intensive $440 million revitalization project called Ponce en Marcha has increased the citys historic area from 260 to 1,046 buildings, the Ponce en Marcha project was conceived in 1985 by then governor Rafael Hernández Colón during his second term in La Fortaleza. A significant number of buildings in Ponce are listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the nonprofit Project for Public Places listed the historic downtown Ponce city center as one of the 60 of the Worlds Great Places, for its graciously preserved showcase of Caribbean culture. The Ponce en Marcha project has given even more form to the definition, establishment, the plan is the result of litigation between the Government of the Autonomous Municipality of Ponce and the Government of Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica must complete Phase III of the burial of aerial cabling within the Zona Histórica, the Puerto Rico Autoridad de los Puertos must expand the runway and taxiway at Mercedita Airport and build the maintenance building. Structures within the zone are classified into four categories, The first consists of structures with a monumental historic value. The second is for those structures that while lacking a monumental historic value, possess some qualities of historic, architectural, the third category includes those structures of contextual value. And finally, category 4 is reserved for those structures that exist within the zone but whose value has not been assessed. The historic zone itself consists of three distinct sub-zones, First Order Zone – This zone is limited to the immediately surrounding Plaza Las Delicias. This is the historic zone, created in 1962. Second Order Zone – This is a zone that was added in 1989 further increasing the perimeter of the area around Plaza Las Delicias. Third Order Zone – This zone was added in 1992, and it covered the communities of Mariani, Belgica, and parts of Clausells and it was also extended, for the first time, east of Rio Portugues, to cover the community of La Alhambra. In August,2003, Mayor Cordero favored a measure to exclude Belgica, Claussells, National Register of Historic Places in Ponce, Puerto Rico
8.
Puerto Rico
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Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and briefly called Porto Rico, is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeast Caribbean Sea. It is an archipelago that includes the island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller ones such as Mona, Culebra. The capital and most populous city is San Juan and its official languages are Spanish and English, though Spanish predominates. The islands population is approximately 3.4 million, Puerto Ricos rich history, tropical climate, diverse natural scenery, renowned traditional cuisine, and attractive tax incentives make it a popular destination for travelers from around the world. Four centuries of Spanish colonial government transformed the ethnic, cultural and physical landscapes primarily with waves of African captives, and Canarian. In the Spanish imperial imagination, Puerto Rico played a secondary, in 1898, following the Spanish–American War, the United States appropriated Puerto Rico together with most former Spanish colonies under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. Puerto Ricans are natural-born citizens of the United States, however, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in the United States Congress, which governs the territory with full jurisdiction under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950. As a U. S. territory, American citizens residing on the island are disenfranchised at the level and may not vote for president. However, Congress approved a constitution, allowing U. S. citizens on the territory to elect a governor. A fifth referendum will be held in June 2017, with only Statehood, in early 2017, the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis posed serious problems for the government. The outstanding bond debt that had climbed to $70 billion or $12,000 per capita at a time with 12. 4% unemployment, the debt had been increasing during a decade long recession. Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen – a derivation of Borikén, its indigenous Taíno name, the terms boricua and borincano derive from Borikén and Borinquen respectively, and are commonly used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage. The island is also known in Spanish as la isla del encanto. Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, eventually traders and other maritime visitors came to refer to the entire island as Puerto Rico, while San Juan became the name used for the main trading/shipping port and the capital city. The islands name was changed to Porto Rico by the United States after the Treaty of Paris of 1898, the anglicized name was used by the US government and private enterprises. The name was changed back to Puerto Rico by a joint resolution in Congress introduced by Félix Córdova Dávila in 1931, the ancient history of the archipelago known today as Puerto Rico is not well known. The scarce archaeological findings and early Spanish scholarly accounts from the colonial era constitute the basis of knowledge about them. The first comprehensive book on the history of Puerto Rico was written by Fray Íñigo Abbad y Lasierra in 1786, the first settlers were the Ortoiroid people, an Archaic Period culture of Amerindian hunters and fishermen who migrated from the South American mainland
9.
Courtyard
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A courtyard or court is an enclosed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Such spaces in inns and public buildings were often the meeting places for some purposes. Both of the court and yard derive from the same root. See yard and garden for the relation of this set of words, courtyards—private open spaces surrounded by walls or buildings—have been in use in residential architecture for almost as long as people have lived in constructed dwellings. The courtyard house makes its first appearance ca, Courtyards have historically been used for many purposes including cooking, sleeping, working, playing, gardening, and even places to keep animals. Before courtyards, open fires were burning in a central place within a home. Over time, these openings were enlarged and eventually led to the development of the centralized open courtyard we know today. Courtyard homes have been designed and built throughout the world many variations. Courtyard homes are prevalent in temperate climates, as an open central court can be an important aid to cooling house in warm weather. However, courtyard houses have been found in harsher climates as well for centuries, the comforts offered by a courtyard—air, light, privacy, security, and tranquility—are properties nearly universally desired in human housing. Ur,2000 BC — two-storey houses constructed around a square were built of fired brick. Kitchen, working, and public spaces were located on the ground floor, the central uncovered area in a Roman domus was referred to as an atrium. Today, we use the term courtyard to refer to such an area. Roman atrium houses were built side by side along the street and they were one-storey homes without windows that took in light from the entrance and from the central atrium. The hearth, which used to inhabit the centre of the home, was relocated, and these homes frequently incorporated a second open-air area, the garden, which would be surrounded by Greek-style colonnades, forming a peristyle. This created a colonnaded walkway around the perimeter of the courtyard, Courtyard houses in the Middle East reflect the nomadic influences of the region. Often the flat rooftops of these structures were used for sleeping in warm weather, in some Islamic cultures, private courtyards provided the only outdoor space for women to relax unobserved. The traditional Chinese courtyard house, e. g. siheyuan, is an arrangement of individual houses around a square
